Thursday, February 28, 2013

What's Important


Many, many years ago, my younger brother and I followed in our dad’s footsteps and joined IBM for our first adult jobs.  I did in the more usual way – college, MBA, start out as an up-and-coming finance and planning guy.  My brother, David, took a more circuitous route.

He dropped out of college, leaving South Bend for the much sunnier climes of Florida.  A year or so later, he hires on at IBM in Boca Raton, working third shift on the manufacturing line for the new IBM PCs – this was many, many years ago!  Putting tops on bottoms is how he described his job.

Realizing that this could not possibly be what he’d do for the rest of his life, he starts taking college classes during the day, and ultimately earns his degree.  Promoted to junior financial analyst, IBM transfers him to the Manassas, Virginia plant, where my dad and I both work.

Soon after arriving, he decides to visit Dad in his office.  Now Dad was one of the IBM managers who opened the Manassas plant, and he was currently in charge of operations and facilities.  About half of the site's employees reported to him.

Dave leaves the rabbit warren of cubicles – his new home – and takes the shuttle over to headquarters, then the elevator to the top floor – okay, it was only a three story building, but it was the top floor – and is quite impressed.  Let into the inner sanctum by the officious-looking secretary outside the door, Dad is at his big desk, conference table and chairs to one side, couches along the other.

Dave says to him, “Dad, you must be really important!”

Dad responds in his typically gruff way, – people didn’t call him “Big Bear” for nothing – “David, I’m not important, I just have an important job.  That’s what this is all about.”

How often and how easily I, like David, like James and John in today’s passage, confuse the earthly trappings of success and honor with what Jesus truly wants for each one of us.

My Dad, like Jesus, knew that these transitory and material signs of earthly success say nothing about who we truly are. 

It isn’t important that I have a secretary standing sentinel outside the door, it only matters that the Holy Spirit is constantly present in my life, guiding and strengthening me.

It isn’t important how spacious and well-appointed my office is, it only matters how broad and how deep God’s love is in my heart.

It isn’t important how many people report to me, it only matters how many people I serve, for the first among you will be the slave to all.

The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life for the many – for me, for you, for everyone. 

Now that’s important!

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Signs


We depend on signs.  Imagine driving in an unfamiliar place without any signs - no street signs, no directional signs, no traffic lights, no lines or arrows on the road, no store signs, nothing.  We might as well be driving blind. 

Fortunately, there are many traffic signs.  Of course, we need to pay attention to the signs.  Otherwise, we become lost, or worse.  My wife, Mary, claims that I am living proof of this most every time I drive – it’s as if the signs don’t even exist. 

In this morning’s reading, Jesus shows frustration with the people around him.  They are just not seeing the signs.  The blind have been given sight, the lame are walking, the hungry are fed, the kingdom has been preached, yet they demand more and bigger signs.  Are they just not paying attention?

The church knows that we are often inattentive.  For at least this reason, our tradition has always been rich in sacraments and sacramentals.  They are visible reminders of our faith – signs that point us to the love and grace of God.  Yet often, we miss these signs.

Sometimes the signs become so familiar and ubiquitous, that we become blind to them.  Imagine the last time you drove a car.  How many times did you see a speed limit sign?  They are very common, you probably saw several, but I miss them all the time.  Similarly, one of the most ancient and common Christian sacramentals is a crucifix or a cross.  It is a powerful reminder of the love that Jesus has for us, the suffering and pain that he bore for us that we might be saved, and the mercy that he showed to those who inflicted this heinous, torturing death.  Yet, I often miss it.  I have five or six crosses or crucifixes in the house, maybe more.  I’m not sure as they become just part of the background.  I see a cross on a piece of jewelry and I just see a t-shaped piece of silver, not reminded at all of the love and mercy of God.

Lent can help us to appreciate the crucifix.  During Lent, we often pray the Stations of the Cross together.  We are stunned by the depth of sin that can drive us to treat another human being so inhumanely.  We sense Jesus’ pain and humility as he falls under the weight of the cross, is stripped of his clothes, and is nailed to the cross.  We mourn with Mary and the women of Jerusalem as they see Jesus suffer so horribly.  We are heartened by the few that reach out to Jesus and help in the only ways they can – Simon, Veronica and Joseph of Arimathea.  And we pray that through God’s grace, we are changed by this experience.

We pray for the humility and courage to bear our own cross as Jesus bore his.  We pray for the strength to get up after we stumble and fall.  We pray for the grace to mourn our most dire circumstances and yet look with hope to the resurrection that is promised to all who have faith.  We pray for the courage to confront inhumanity with mercy and kindness.

The Stations help us remember these hopes and yearnings each time we see a crucifix or a cross. 

And while we pray the Stations publicly during Lent – at noon and 7:30 every Lenten Friday here at St. Rose – the Stations remain on the wall of most every Catholic church all year long, available for our private prayer and reflection.  They call us to see in the crucifix a sign of our salvation, a sign of our hope, a sign of our faith in a God whose love for us transcends the depths of our sins and failings; a God whose love for us continues beyond the ends of our earthly lives.

Pray the Stations.  See the sign.  Live the faith.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

The desert journey


On the first Sunday of Lent, we always begin our preparation for Easter with Jesus in the desert.  This is quite apt, as the forty days of Lent are patterned on Jesus’ forty days in the desert preparing for his public ministry.

In turn, Jesus’ forty days parallels the forty years that the Hebrew people spend wandering the desert from Egypt to the Promised Land.  But the comparison and contrast goes much deeper than just time and place, and it gives us great insight into our own desert journey.
Moses tells the people, “Remember how for forty years now the Lord, your God, has directed all your journeying in the desert so as to test you by affliction and find out whether or not it was your intention to keep his commandments.” (Dt 8:2).  Just so, the Holy Spirit drives Jesus into the desert that he might understand and follow what His Father’s will is for him.

The people were sorely tested with hunger, as was Jesus.  They failed the test, complaining bitterly that Moses had led them to the desert to die.  They wanted to return to Egypt, where, even if slaves, they would always have food to eat.  Jesus refuses to use his power merely to satisfy his own physical wants.

The people were tempted to worship false gods, as was Jesus.  They built the golden calf.  Jesus rejected the devil’s bribe.

Despite their miraculous release from slavery, escape from the Pharaoh’s chariots, being fed with manna and quails, and receiving of God’s law at Mt. Sinai, the people continued to test God, never thinking they had enough, never secure in God’s intentions towards them.  Jesus refused to test God’s love, absolutely secure in His Father’s abiding love and kindness for him.

To drive these comparisons home, all three Scripture verses that Jesus uses to rebut the devil come from Moses’ admonishments to the people during their desert journey.

But, as with all of Scripture, this is not just a tale of the past, but a tale which lives for us today.  In a way, our entire life here on earth is a desert journey.  Compared to the comforts and bliss of heaven – the oneness with God that He desires for each of us – this earthly life, despite its fleeting moments of pleasure and satisfaction, can be as dry and desolate as the desert.

Yet, how often do I work to secure more of earth’s pleasures, more of earth’s satisfactions, more of earth’s happiness, despite their fleeting nature?  Ironically, this evanescence merely heightens the intensity of my desire for material possessions and physical pleasure.  I become jealous of what I already have, greedy to acquire more, and envious of the happiness of others.

How often am I faced with evil and respond with anger, vengeance, and violence?  In doing so, I reject the God of infinite mercy, the God of unconditional love, the God of all life.  I take up the devil’s offer of earthly power, a power which inevitably leads to death, destruction, and damnation.
 
How often have I bargained with God, promising my fidelity if only he would grant this one more thing?  I become forgetful at best, ungrateful and disparaging at worst, of all that God has already given me.  I become bitter, angry and self-loathing.  At that point, I cannot love others, for I cannot even love myself.

In all of these cases, I have wandered into a particularly barren part of the desert, a true valley of shadow and death.

But all is not lost.  We are only at the beginning of Lent.  In fasting, I become more aware of how my physical wants are so much greater than my physical needs.  What I give up turns out to be mere trifle; the important things remain.

In almsgiving, I am reminded of the unconditional love that God has for me, the infinite grace with which he has blessed me, and the great mercy he has shown for me.

In prayer, I am centered on the one who gives true power – the power to love, to power to forgive, the power to live.

By Easter, we may still be in the desert, but we have the courage and will to reject the devil’s path that we may follow the way of Jesus.  We do not fear, but rejoice in faith, hope and love – for our help is in the name of the Lord, who gives us life and love; our salvation is through His suffering and death on the cross; and our destiny is to be with Him in His resurrection.

It is a journey through the desert, but it ends in Paradise.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Practice Makes Holy


Practice Makes Holy

Ash Wednesday is an anti-“Hallmark holiday.”  Hallmark doesn't even sell an Ash Wednesday card.  Perhaps they don’t know what to put on the card.  Here’s my idea – “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” 

Okay, you’re thinking that this sounds pretty lame, just some trite expression of pop psychology.  However, it captures the spirituality of Ash Wednesday and Lent.  It keeps us from dwelling in the past, re-hashing all the what-ifs in our lives that we cannot possibly change.  Instead, we are brought into the reality of today, where we can still decide to do something that may actually affect not only today, but the rest of our lives, and not only our earthly lives, but our eternal lives to come.

As Christians who believe in an all-loving, all-forgiving God, at some point we are going to be faced with a major decision.  We will have to decide if we truly believe that God is the source of all happiness and we wish to spend eternity wallowing in that bliss, or if we think we can make our own happiness and we don’t really need God, so thanks, but no thanks, I’ll do it myself.  This is the choice of heaven or hell.  The ashes we receive today remind us that this decision lies ahead of us.

Sad to say, I’ve often chosen hell.  For example, I easily take pride in my accomplishments, blind to God’s providence.  The earthly satisfactions that I have been able to procure – ample food, nice house and car, the latest toys, etc., etc., - can make the eternal happiness of God seem irrelevant.  Why do I need God if I’ve built such a nice life for myself?

I almost reflexively seek vengeance on those who have hurt me, denying the universal and unconditional love of God.  I put aside the protection and power of the infinite and almighty God in favor of my own meager defenses.

I need Lent.  By turning me to that final decision, Lent makes me see that my choices today are simply practice for that final, eternal decision.  It reminds me that when I am confronted with that final decision, I am likely to make the same decision I’ve been practicing for all my life.  If I live close to God today – the life of holiness that God calls each of us to – I are more likely to respond favorably to God’s call at that final judgment.  If I ignore God’s call today, why should I believe my decision will change when I am called that final time?

From ancient times, prayer, fasting and almsgiving have been three practices which have helped people to turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel, experiencing and appreciating God’s holiness.

Prayer is obvious.  If we are in communication with God, laying our needs before him, thanking him for His blessings in our lives, praising him for his glory, or simply putting ourselves in his presence and listening, we cannot help but be affected by and drawn towards God.

Almsgiving allows us to share God’s love with others, turning us away from our own needs to meet what is often a much greater need of others.  Jesus places great importance on service to others, most poignantly when Jesus equates our service to the poor with service to God – When I was hungry, you gave me food, when I was thirsty, you gave me drink, etc.

It is not as obvious, but fasting is another holy practice.  By consciously foregoing something which gives us earthly pleasure, we are changed.  We recognize that even in that pleasure’s absence, life goes on.  The important things remain.  By consciously denying ourselves, we gain empathy for those who don’t have the choice of denying themselves, for they have so little of their own to deny.  And by denying ourselves for even a short time, we become more appreciative of the gifts we have received from God.

The genius of Lent is that it is only forty days long.  We can see the end.  Unlike a New Year’s resolution which seemingly has no end, and therefore ends rather quickly, a Lenten resolution is only for forty days.  We can do that!  Unlike a New Year’s resolution which typically focuses improving our physical health or wealth and is dependent on our own discipline, a Lenten resolution is about living God’s call to holiness, and has His grace and power behind it.  Thus, Lenten resolutions, with God’s help, transform us, turning us from self-centered, pleasure and power-seeking creatures into God-centered beings called to holiness.

Practice prayer.  Practice almsgiving.  Practice fasting.  Start today, the first day of the rest of your life.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

All about...


What’s it all about

A little less than two weeks ago, our daughter, Mary Kate, gave birth to her first child, a healthy, well-tempered, and cuter-than-a-button baby girl, Ava Marie.  Ty and Mary Kate are living with us as they seek to buy their first home on Long Island, so Mary and I have been blessed to witness these first days of little Ava’s life and of Mary Kate’s adjustment to motherhood.  Mary Kate has quickly realized and seems to have gracefully accepted, a truth which every new parent – especially every new mom – always finds out sooner or later – it’s never all-about-you again.

Actually, a related aphorism applies to each and every Christian, who, by nature of his or her baptism, is called to live a life of holiness.   Jesus describes this as “Be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect.” (Mt 5:48)  This sounds like a tall order, but it is made possible if I remember this one thing:  my life is not about me. 

Our faith teaches us that God calls each of us to a particular station in life.  We refer to this as a vocation, from the Latin “vocare,” meaning “to call.”  These vocations are tremendously varied.  God may call us to a religious vocation – to the priesthood, the diaconate, or the consecrated religious life.  More likely, God may call us to the vocation of marriage, parenthood, or the single life.  Sometimes, our vocation may involve a combination of things.  But a key character of this calling is that it is not our idea, it is God’s.  God chooses us, we don’t choose God.

We see this clearly in today’s readings.  Isaiah cannot believe that he would ever be an effective prophet.   He is too young – only a teenager.  Nobody would believe or respect him as a prophet.  He claims to be like everyone else – a man of unclean lips in a people of unclean lips.  He is doomed to failure.  That was his idea.  God’s idea is quite different.

When confronted with the power of God that Jesus displays in the miraculous catch of fish, Peter confesses that he is a sinful man; he doesn’t deserve Jesus to be near him.  Well, he states the truth – nobody deserves Jesus – but that’s his idea.  God’s idea is quite different.

This first character points to a second character of vocation.  No matter what our particular vocation is – and there could be as many different vocations or combinations of vocations as there are people in the world – they all have something in common.  St. Paul gives us a clue when he tells his disciples in Corinth – “For I handed onto you as of first importance what I in turn had received…” (1 Cor 15:3a)  No matter what our particular vocation is, it must involve giving to others what we have already received, the infinite and unconditional love of God. 

It’s not my idea; it is God’s.  It is not about stroking my ego; it is about loving others as God loves me, without end and despite my unworthiness.  It is not self-serving; it is serving others as God serves me, taking on my human nature to conquer death for me, standing with me until the end of time.

By the grace of God, my life is not about me. 

Never was, isn’t now, never will be, forever and ever.  Amen.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Martyrs here, martyrs now


In his own time, Jesus was not a very famous guy.  He was not a political or military leader who would have made headlines.  He lived and taught in the boondocks of the Roman Empire.  Despite that, there is enough documentary evidence outside of Scripture to convince most historians that a charismatic, itinerant preacher named Jesus lived and taught in first-century Palestine.  We even hear from Roman historians that this preacher was crucified during the rule of Pontius Pilate.  However, the resurrection is another story.  It is a non-historical event.  Nobody had ever done this before, nobody has done it since.  Non-Christians at the time wrote off the early disciples’ claims as a mere hoax, or perhaps simply the imaginings of desperate, powerless peasants.

So, why are we here today, celebrating our belief in the one who conquered death?  Why do over one billion people in the world today believe?  Largely because virtually all of those desperate, powerless peasants were killed in agonizing and horrible ways simply because they believed what could not be proven.  They could have denied their story and lived, but they did not.  Tertullian, a second-century Church father, noted that the blood of these martyrs was the seed of the church.  Seed that died, and seed that bore great fruit.

But the age of martyrs continues.  Today, the church celebrates the witness of St. Paul Miki and his companions, 26 people who, like Jesus, were crucified – not in Jerusalem, but outside Nagasaki, Japan in 1597.  It makes sense that we read the end of Matthew’s gospel on St. Paul’s day when Jesus tells the disciples to “teach all nations,” promising to be with us until the end of the age, for Japan in 1597 was far-off in both distance and time from that mountaintop in first-century Galilee.

Over two hundred years after St. Paul and his friends witnessed to Jesus with their lives, Christian missionaries were once more allowed to preach in Japan.  They found almost no trace of Christian faith as it had been rigorously persecuted for centuries.  In time, though, they discovered thousands of people living around Nagasaki who had secretly preserved the faith preached by St. Paul Miki as he hung on his cross.

There was a time in my life, not so long ago, when I, like perhaps many others around me, only knew of these martyrs in stories that happened in times long past and in far distant places.  Surely, while these accounts could encourage me in my own faith, such things would never happen here!  And while I knew that Jesus had called each one of us to pick up a cross and follow him, I was sure my cross would not be a literal cross like that of St. Paul Miki and his friends.  I was blessed, fortunate to live in an enlightened society with great freedoms and wealth.  For people like me, a figurative cross would be so much easier to bear.

I was wrong, so very wrong.

In the past month, I have seen – first hand, in the flesh, not just in some book or heard from in some far-off place – people who picked up and carried a cross that they or I could never have imagined;  people who embraced that  cross in a way that I can only pray to have to courage to do.

They witnessed to me – as they witnessed to our country and to the entire world – by carrying a cross of love in the face of hate; by celebrating the joy of life in the face of desperate loss and sadness; and by offering God’s mercy and gentleness in the face of great evil and violence.

While I continue to mourn the great loss and pain we have suffered in Newtown, I thank God for the great faith of those who bore this cross most intimately.  Their witness has made the kingdom of God more real to all of us in Newtown today, and, like the witnesses of the early martyrs, like the witness of St. Paul Miki and his companions, will continue to make the kingdom more present to all the nations until the end of the age.

Thanks be to God.

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Restless Hearts


Restless Hearts

Familiarity breeds contempt.  I imagine all of us have experienced the reality of this adage at some point in our lives.  Certainly, I realize it when foods that I once found indescribably delicious become, after repeated and repeated tastings, tiresome and bland.

Sociologists have done studies showing its power to affect our attitudes towards each other.  A hypothetical person was described to a test group using generic descriptors and the participants were to say whether they would like this person or not.  The participants heard either two, four, six, eight, or ten descriptors.  The result was that the more descriptors that the participant heard – a surrogate for the more familiar they were with the person – the less likely they were to say that they would like that person.

Why would this be so?  The researchers speculated that the more we know of a person, the more likely we’ll know something we don’t like about them.  Jesus has this problem when he returned to Nazareth after building a reputation around Galilee as a charismatic teacher and prophetic healer.  Those who knew him as just another dusty child playing in the streets, the son of a carpenter, certainly nobody of reputation or esteem, rejected him as someone worthy of their respect.   They were so repulsed by his claims that they tried to kill him.  Familiarity certainly bred contempt.

St. Augustine knew this well.  At the start of his autobiography, he states, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." 

His premise is the key.  We believe that God did not create us by accident but out of great love, for he created us in his own image and likeness.  We believe that God did not create us without meaning, but with a purpose, a destiny to be one with Him in love, to be one with Him in eternity.  We believe that God did not create us to be abandoned, but to be forever with Him, who knew us before we were born, who formed us in our mother’s womb, who promises to be with us until the end of time.

Thus, whether we are conscious of it or not, we are constantly seeking perfection.   We seek the perfect, but we ourselves – and all of mortal creation around us – are imperfect.  We complicate matter even further, since our idea of perfection itself becomes imperfect, for it is not objective at all, but simply our own subjective idea of perfection.  If we don’t like it, it’s not perfect.

Yet we still hope that someday, we will meet that person who, for us, will be perfect.  It never happens.  Eventually, we are frustrated when we inevitably discover the imperfection, or perhaps simply that thing we don’t like, that proves we are all human.  We restlessly search and search, becoming more restless, more frustrated, more contemptuous of those, including ourselves, who fail to measure up to  our standard of perfection.

Our search can only end when we find the One who is truly, objectively perfect, the One who made us for Himself, the One who loves us perfectly, with a love that never ends, with a love that never fails.  Only when we rest in God does our heart lie still.  Only when we rest in God, are we at peace.  Only when we rest in God, can we love as He loves us.

And this stillness, this peace, this perfect love, changes everything.

It allows us to love and rejoice in the world, even when it doesn’t always work the way we would like. 

It allows us to love ourselves, accepting our own imperfections and failings, knowing that God’s unfailing love is still ours. 

And most importantly, it allows us to love others, accepting them as fellow sons and daughters of God, fellow objects of God’s perfect, infinite and unconditional love, no matter how unlike they may be from us, no matter how familiar we may be with their limitations and imperfections.

You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.